The Great British Bake Off Challenge | Week 5 – Biscuits and Traybakes

October 1, 2013

Super simple, flap-free Flapjacks

I haven’t managed to catch up on my Bake Off baking yet, so this week I tackled Biscuits and Traybakes – delicious! How amazing was Christine’s chalet clock tower?! I would love to try my hand at making something so beautiful, and will def be attempting a ginger bread house at Christmas (watch this space!) So in the meantime I decided to give traybakes a go! Having had lots of sweet treats recently I decided to make savoury red onion and cheddar cheese flapjacks.

As you may have seen from previous baking posts, there’s only one true baking champion for me and that’s my mum, and so I used another of her recipes for my signature traybake. And what a simple recipe it is too! These flapjacks are so easy to make, and only take about 15 mins prep time.

They turned out quite well, but were a little bit too crumbly and didn’t hold their shape as well as I’d hoped. They don’t have quite the same gooey texture as sweet flapjacks, as they don’t have the syrup to hold them together, so I think next time I’d use more cheese to bind the oats together better. The flavours were amazing; the red onion and mature cheddar worked really well together, and the rosemary added a lovely herby taste. I def recommend using some fresh rosemary either instead of, or alongside, the dried rosemary, to give a better depth of flavour.

They’re a really great addition to a picnic lunch, and are even great for breakfast due to their savoury flavour. I also took them to Glastonbury with me one year, and they were fab- lasted the whole weekend, kept their shape, and were really filling, whist still being relatively healthy. Perfect!

Ingredients…

1 small onion – chopped

50g butter

175g mature cheese cheddar

150g Scottish porridge oats

1 egg – beaten

1/4 teaspoon mustard powder

Rosemary – dried / fresh – to taste

Salt and pepper

Method…

1. Lightly fry the onions in the butter until they are softened.

2. Add in the other ingredients and mix until they are all incorporated together.

3. Grease the tin then pour the mixture in, levelling it off with a palate knife.

4. Put in the oven and cook for 30-40 mins 180oC or until golden brown.

5. Take out the oven and cut into even pieces and transfer to a wire rack or board to cool.